Flight
by Skaye
Summary: Lady's life when she was still just Mary. A childhood of demons, dreams and her Faustian father. UPDATED: At long last, the final chapter.
1. Chapter 1

**Ok so Rahovart Saga is now moving along nicely and i figured i could start on something else. This is Lady's life story up until the very instant she arrives at Temen Ni Gru. As previously mentioned, it's not going to be happy but i've done my utmost to make it unique. This first chapter is for my brave editor and spell-checker in cheif, the devil's fangirl. Plushies for President! Bye, Skaye.**

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The sun beat down on a flat, unwelcoming and wholly unfamiliar landscape which flew by barely noticed by the small figure on a motorcycle speeding alone down the highway. Mary had never travelled so far from home in her life. Driving all day for three days now, she was tired and sore but time passed quickly on the road, the concrete shot by sending dry dust flying under the wheels of the large growling motorcycle.

A signpost standing forlornly in the middle of nowhere by the road said it was 60 miles to the city yet. The sun was just sitting on the impossibly flat horizon in a blaze of red and indigo. Too far to go before the light was gone.

She pulled over and consulted for the hundredth time the road map she carried folded into her backpack along with its odd overlay. A transparent acetate cover with a design like an irregular spider-web directly above it. They all came together at a point directly over the city currently 60 miles to her South East. She'd followed this odd map over 900 miles on motorcycle and still didn't truly know why.

Hopefully the reason would make itself clear when she arrived there.

She drove on until just after nightfall when the sky was still faintly purple over the low buildings of an industrial town where she was able to find a motel with a decent place to eat nearby. She couldn't at first remember the last time she ate. She'd slept a while back in an equally pointless little town about a day and a half ago and had probably eaten then. She bought a pizza and water in the grungy little bar next to her motel and then sat eating and checking over her map, matching up the flowing branching lines of the acetate with the twisted lines of the road map.

Did anything in this world just go in a goddam straight line? Everything was drawn and twisted with little obstructions and complications.

She stirred her water with a straw and poked at the remainder of the pizza, appetite lost as she sank into memory, fully reviewing her situation for the first time since she'd ran out of the door of her home armed, lost and furious three days ago. It had been a hell of a journey; she'd gotten lost, soaked in the rain, baked in the sun, attacked by a tramp, pulled over by the cops at least twice and had four or five rather nasty falls from the perilous bike. All that and it still seemed like a cake-walk compared to the events of the day and night prior to it. When was the last time she'd been able to really rest?

She sank exhausted and aching into her creaking leather seat and watched the last traces of light fade into darkness outside the grimey window as if swallowed by the greedy night. She felt she would be swallowed up as well. Too small a person for an immense and complicated world. She'd never known before how immense. Her life up until this had been highly unusual but it had been simple and she'd loved it. Her little world had shielded her like a shell around her and now it lay in fragments she could scarcely recognise. Mother. Her mother lying pale and dead on the floor, blood on her face, on her clothes, on the floor. Father. Vanished so abruptly it seemed impossible. One day there, the next so profoundly missing she was aware of it constantly aching like a missing tooth. Home. So far behind her, mother's body perhaps still lying where she died on the cold tiled floor, too horrible to think. Home empty now, still and quiet as it had never been for centuries. The dust gathering, the plants dying, the library left in shambles...

As a means of comfort, she clasped her hand around the large rocket launcher she'd only learned to use three years ago and now intended to use with extreme persuasiveness on the person or people responsible for the wreck of her life. Anger flared up making her clutch the handle of the gun so tight it hurt. Mother. Father. Home. I'll tear them all to pieces them for what they've done to us. I'll find every last one and make them beg for death before I grant it. Similar dramatic thoughts and promises of vengeance had been whipping through her head urging her onward ever since home and now 900-odd miles away she had finally stopped to think about how and why...


	2. Chapter 2

She'd been born only 19 years ago in the large bedroom of the house where she'd lived her entire life. Always an only child, her parents had lavished all their attention on her and she'd had a childhood full of gifts and affection. She in turn adored her parents and although she'd been slightly spoiled and wilful, she was by no means obnoxious. Loneliness was the only blight on it; she'd been isolated by the remoteness of her mother's palatial house in the mountains and had never attended school. Her father taught her initially, he read to her from the great dusty books that crowded the shelves of the vast library.

The library was very old, like the rest of the house. She'd never known how old. Her mother told her that there had been a house there for many centuries longer than there had been houses in this country but Mary didn't believe her. Her mother's family was ancient as well, it came with the house. Her mother was the last in the family and as such had inherited the house and a small fortune. Her father was a mystery, he never spoke of his past but he had such a vast amount of learning that Mary was certain he'd been a scholar. He was considerably older than his pretty wife and although he never once mistreated her, it was clear he didn't really love her. He loved her library and was very fond of her the same way one can be fond of a particularly devoted pet. He certainly loved Mary and read to her nightly until she was able to read for herself.

For her entire childhood, her mornings were commonly spent with her father in the librarycomfortably surrounded bythe ancient dusty smell of books she came to associate exclusively with him and climbing up on the tall wooden ladders to read the spines of the oldest books on the top shelves. She learned a little of Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Egyptian picture writing and Chinese letters as well as some small part of the extinct dark language of the other world which her father seemed particularly fascinated with. He marvelled aloud at some of the texts in this vast collection and there were many he forbid her ever to read. Incredible stories about the demons and beasts who had allegedly ruled Earth before humans had control. She managed to read at least eight of them before he caught her and locked them back up in his room. She'd sulked then and refused to speak to him so to apologise, he'd lit candles on the roof that night and sat with her reading aloud from Faust. She'd never in her life forget the fitful flicker of the candles in the cool night time breeze, hugging her knees in the semi-dark listening in thrall to her father's powerful voice chanting the lines like an actor.

"Unlock'd the spirit-world doth lie,

Thy sense is shut, thy heart is dead!

Up scholar, lave, with courage high,

Thine earthly breast in the morning-red!"

He laid his hand on her shoulder and looked down at her with eyes as strange, bicoloured and oddly luminescent, as her own and said with sudden seriousness,

"Mary, my sweet child, you have nothing to fear in the world. Trust me and obey me, Mary, and I will make us happy and great."

She thought little of it at the time; her father often said strange things. He repeated the admonition "trust and obey" often though and Mary took it for granted that he was right in all things.

Her afternoons were her own and she spent them outside, walking in the old woods around her home, sometimes walking as far as the deep mountain lake and swimming a little. She never saw a single soul in those woods or by that lake. It was her own personal Eden. Before it got dark, she would come home and listen to her mother playing the grand piano in the parlour until dinner. She marvelled at her mother's skilled fingers flying across the keys, coaxing the music from them like magic. She said at the start of each piece simply what it was and who composed it so Mary came to know Mozart, Bach, Brahms and Beethoven as well as her mother's own compositions which were always lovely, often sad and never louder than she could avoid. She knew how her husband disliked her playing, he hated music and called it a waste of time and had never, since their wedding, danced with her although she loved it. She danced alone sometimes with Mary hiding watched her, twirling and gesturing to the air, vital and beaming in the easy grace of her movement.

Evenings were always the same, dinner together as a family followed by listening to her father read by the fire or playing chess with him, he instructed her at first then watched as she improved and improved, able to beat him by the age of eleven. They all sat around the fire, sometimes her mother would just talk for the sake of talking, other times there would be comfortable silence.

Night was the perfect time for Mary to sit in her very own tower at the East corner of the house and look out over the dark woods, perhaps watching the rain and listening to vinyl records of old rock bands. She would lie on her back staring out at the night and imagine exploring the places her father told her of. She imagined meeting King Arthur and his knights, sailing with Ishmael, prowling London with Dracula. She imagined slaying demons. It was her favourite fantasy; she saw the dreadful creatures in their armour and mail with immense swords or cruel spears crawling out of the shadows of her tower room. She saw the ancient evils that haunted the dark places of the world and, sword in hand, she slew them all. She laughed and tossed her head as her blade rent demon flesh and she gloried in their screams.

Then her father would tuck her into bed, her mother kiss her softly on the forehead and she would be left alone with just a couple of candles and her LP player in the velvet-draped cavern of her room and she would whisper to the ghosts of the house.

She was fearless then, what was there to fear? She talked to appease the ghosts, demons were all dead and gone and the big bad real world was miles and miles away from hers through forest and mountains.

Then one day when she was thirteen, the real world came to her. Her mother realised as Mary entered her teens that she would need a life of her own one day. School was unthinkable; Mary simply didn't possess the learning. So to prepare her for college one day, her mother begged her husband to send for a tutor. He was scornful at first, he considered his daughter highly intelligent with the greatest education a child could possess but when his wife reminded him of his ownformal education and all it had taught him, not just what he'd learned from books, he reluctantly began to be convinced. A tutor was sent for. Her mother knew 'just the man.' An old friend from where she didn't say named Gabriel Loggia.

He arrived within two weeks of their request and brought with him a great deal of books, scientific equipment and, to her father's surprise and alarm, firearms. He was a striking man, taller than average and powerful of build all in black with short black curling hair streaked with grey. His eyes were large and dark and his accent was thick with Italian. He was Mary's first real contact with a man other than her father and she was taken at once. She listened eagerly to him telling her all that he was going to teach her and show her. She didn't notice her father's eyes narrowing or her mother's dreamy smile.

Gabriel offered Mary his arm with a secret smile to her mother and led her into the parlour where he commenced telling her about her education then asked her many questions about herself and what she knew which she was delighted to answer showing off the full extent of her vocabulary and crediting her father with every piece of information she had. He taught her everything, she confessed. Except the music and composers, her mother played them to her. She played piano. Gabriellaughed and said he knew with another smile to her mother. Her father had glowered and stood directly behind Mary and demanded of Gabriel exactly what it was he did.

Gabriel had confessed that he had not always been a tutor, his original profession had been priest, and he showed them his old rosary. He'd experienced a rather unusual attack after that and had gone on to being a "paranormal mercenary" as he put it. At that stage in his life, he'd met Mary's mother at Cambridge University where she was studying the History of Old World Music and he'd been body-guarding the Curator of Artefacts at the University museum. Shortly afterwards, he'd been forced to go underground and continue his work there for several years due to "complications with national law enforcement." Mary was rapturous. She hung on his every word and her father grew increasingly more bitter. When Gabriel had finished describing his life, Mary's father asked to speak with her mother alone and she was left with Gabriel who smiled kindly at her and began to show her how to weave a band of threads that was ten times stronger than the threads themselves. Useful for all kinds of things, he'd said.

Her mother and father were a long time talking and, although she never once heard a raised voice, she knew they were fighting. She never particularly minded when they fought, it was part of life, and her father was simply right because she had never known him to be wrong. When they came back half an hour later, though, it was her mother who was triumphant and Gabriel was to stay. While Mary was confused and conflicted that her mother had won a fight against her father, she was glad Gabriel was to teach her.

Her education commenced the very next day, for the very first time in her life, she put some thought into what she should wear eventually settling for a white blouse and emerald knee-length skirt with dark green shoes and her long dark hair in a braid with green ribbon. Satisfied that she looked studious enough, she went down to meet Gabriel in the large study set aside exclusively for his lessons. The table was covered in neat heaps of books depending on subject and there was a red leather-bound blank book for each stack. On a rack against the wall were rows and rows of guns of all shapes and sizes along with boxes of clips, bullets and shells. Her attention was immediately drawn there then to Gabriel who stood by the window talking to her mother. They spoke in hushed voices and laughed softly and it made Mary's temper flare. She opened the door harder than was necessary and walked smartly to her desk where she sat down and whipped out a pen. She glared up at the pair of them, anger flashing in her odd eyes.

"I'm ready to begin now." she said imperiously.

Her mother smiled and kissed the top of her head on the way out which made Mary want to punch her. Gabriel walked easily over to the chair beside hers. Her anger drained away as he handed her the first of the red blank books and began his first lesson on Arithmetic. She sampled all the subjects he was to teach her in that morning and when they broke for lunch he told her off-hand that she should change into something more practical for the afternoon because she would have her first lesson in what he called "marksmanship." Which basically meant gun fighting. She was thrilled beyond words and bolted her lunch before racing upstairs to change barely even throwing a greeting to her father as she dashed past him. He scowled deeper and gripped the cover of the book he carried.

She met with Gabriel on a make-shift firing range on their main back lawn. He set up targets and began his first lesson, how to load a gun. Given the variety of guns he possessed this took all afternoon but he insisted she learn it properly. By the time it was approaching dinner time, she was almost bursting with impatience to fire one and just before they packed in for the evening, he grinning allowed her to take one shot at a target. Taking her arms, he lowered them to the correct height, showed her how to align her vision with the sight of the gun and explained to her to breathe slowly, fire each shot like it's your only one and aim always for the very heart of the target. She squeezed the trigger and let the bullet fly with a crack that was, to her inexperienced ears, like thunder. Smoke curled around the barrel of the little revolver and she exhaled deeply. She knew she'd found her passion in life and it felt great. She held the heavy gun flat in both hands and looked at it in awe like it was entirely new to her. Traced her fingers along its barrel, the handle, the little hammer and the still warm tip. She breathed deeply again and looked at last up at the target. The shot had hit a little left of the perfect centre...of the target to the right of the one she'd been aiming for. She bit back a sob but Gabriel laughing kindly gave her a sublime smile.

"Don't worry, _piccolo donna_," he'd said, "Everyone misses the first couple of times, even Billy the Kidd. You mustn't give up little cowgirl."

She laughed a little and smiled. He took the gun gently from her and began to remove the remaining bullets gesturing towards the house as he did so.

"Best go inside, _chica_; they've been calling us for almost five minutes."

Over dinner Mary couldn't stop talking about the lessons. She wasn't normally very talkative but this evening she found it hard to shut herself up. As usual, she and her father headed to sit by the fire after dinner but her mother declined and headed through to her piano room to practise. Gabriel also left. Once they were alone, Mary's father sat opposite her with the chessboard untouched between them and looked at her severely.

"Now Mary, my dear girl, you've grown up so much over the years and I am eternally proud of how mature and intelligent you are. However, you still have much to learn. And not just about Science or Arithmetic or whatever it is we are paying that...man to teach you. Mary, you must know about people. Your mother and her old college friends are fairly typical people. They go about their lives, they think, they feel, they do more or less what they like. You and I are of a different set, Mary. We are special, set apart from them, we are powerful. We have the knowledge and the natural ability to be truly great. People like your mother and Gabriel must never get in the way of what we are here to do."

Mary had been puzzled but never sceptical. She trusted her father's word.

"What are we here to do, father?" she asked quietly and respectfully. He smiled and reached out a hand to begin the game of chess.

"Trust me Mary. Trust me and obey me and you will find out."

They played several games of chess, most of which Mary won, and discussed all she'd learned that day, her father reacting with scorn and contempt to the teachings of Gabriel. They laughed quietly together at sly, unfair things, mocking his accent, his thick dark hair, his large eyes. Just before Mary went up to bed, her father took her by the arm and leaning in close, he said;

"Gabriel Loggia is a liar, Mary. Believe him about factual matters like Biology and Literature but don't listen to his opinions and don't ever trust him."

Mary nodded, kissed her father's cheek and went up to bed confused and unhappy. It was a comfort to her to think about that first shot fired from the little pistol and, listening over and over again to Happiness is a Warm Gun on her LP player in the dark, she fell asleep.

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**Authors notes at the end of a chapter? Never tried them before cos they're mostly ignored either to go on to the next chapter if the story is good or to high-tail it if the story really bites. I own no-one in this story (except Gabriel Loggia and I don't want him, any takers?) The quote midway through is from Faust by Goethe which is an excellent play I would recommend to anyone. That's all from me except to say, as always, reviews are greatly appreciated. Bye, Skaye.**


	3. Chapter 3

**This next chapter is prettysad stuff. It sees the end of Mary's childhood and the first realmanifestation of what her father will become. Dedicated to Keep Me In The Shadows (who always has something inspiring to say even when i balls it up totally), newcomer Lucia and AnonimityX and . Whoever you guys are, i hope you read this. I thoughtwe needed someguns so i added them by the bucketload. Which is fine by me, really. Enjoy it, Skaye.**

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After that, Mary attended lessons every weekday morning in the study with Gabriel ploughing through the Theory of Evolution, English and American literature from the 15th Century to the present, Algebra and other academic aspects. He taught her enthusiastically about dowsing, possession, werewolves, witches, vampires, ley lines, energies and her favourite - demons. Then every afternoon, even on Saturdays, the back garden rang with gunfire as Mary obsessively learned everything to do with them. She reserved Sundays for sitting in the library with her father and listening to him read or reading herself but even then her mind was fixed on Desert Eagles, Soviets, Ingrams, Berettas, Winchester rifles, combos, bullets and rockets. In her bloody daydreams, she was now armed with a whole new arsenal. Gone was the heavy Excalibur sword of her childhood and in its place was a whole plathera of firearmswhich she wielded as expertly as she one day hoped to. She neglected her music sessions with her mother, forgot about the woods and left the ghosts to themselves. 

For three whole years she was happy this way, her skills improved and, although she relished the lessons with Gabriel and never tired of hearing his stories of night-time raids on vampire houses, hiding in terror of werewolf howls when the moon swelled full and other exploits, she kept to her father's words and never trusted him. Never told him about her secret dream to become a mercenary like him, never told him about the daydreams or the loneliness or the ghosts.

She still felt a slight pang of envy whenever Gabriel's eyes followed her mother wherever she went or when she saw the little smile that passed between them. She never told her father during their Sunday time and never asked her mother why she styled her hair deliberately now or dressed in those particularly pretty clothes. Mary herself rarely dressed for show, a blouse and skirt was good enough for morning with rougher more comfortable combats and tank for the afternoon. Her hair grew longer, reaching even braided most of the way down her back.

For her sixteenth birthday, she was given the modified rocket launcher from Gabriel's presonal collectionwhich he christened Kalina An with another irritating secret smile at her mother. She was too awe-struck by the gift to care. It was lighter than it looked but fully armoured with great capacity for using many types of ammunition. It had an attached bayonet which functioned as a propelled grapnel as well as a telescopic sight and guided missiles. It was love at first sight.

She sat impatiently as her mother presented her with an exquisite green glass Art Nouveau music box which played the Pachelbel's Canon,Mary's old lullaby, and her father gave her a laptop computer. She received these gifts with a smile and great thanks and then ran off as soon as possible to put Kalina An through her paces.

She spent all day that way blissfully obliterating targets and sections of the outer wall that got in the way returning inside for a huge meal with her parents and Gabriel. Afterwards, she went with her father to his library in the hopes of talking with him about her college plans now that she was old enough to leave home if she wanted (which she didn't.) Shewould learn under Gabriel for another year then apply to go to University in England like her mother. She wanted to study Ancient World History and then start her mercenary business soon afterwards specialising in firearms. She was excited about the prospect and longed for her father's approval. To her disappointment, he was irritable and unwilling to talk, he just buried himself in the same strange old book he'd been trawling through for months but never let her see.

She left disheartened and headed back to the parlour to discuss her plans with her mother instead. As she was approaching the room, she heard her mother's piano playing the Brahms Sonata in E minor. But she could tell instantly from the high volume it wasn't her mother playing. She dashed silently to the parlour door which stood ajar and peered inside.

Gabriel sat at the piano playing softly and skilfully while her mother waltzed around the room absolutely rapturous. Mary watched hidden as she twirled and twirled to the low beautiful music arms out, face intense and serene in the firelight. She looked so much younger and happier. As the tune ended, her arms dropped and she walked easily back to the piano where Gabriel sat and leaned over him. He wrapped his arms around her neck and pulled her gently closer to him. They kissed softly and he murmured something to her Mary couldn't hear. They sat together kissing and talking for ages then Gabriel began to play Beethoven and her mother resumed her dancing. Mary stepped slowly backward stunned. She realised with a slam that she had suspected this all along. Then she became blindingly furious. She clenched her fists so hard and suddenly it hurt. She walked off breathing heavily and quickly, on the verge of crying or screaming.

The jealousy was bitter and tormented her but it was nowhere near as painful as the betrayal. How could her own mother betray her father? How could she turn her back on the family in this way? After so many years of mother, father and daughter, now it was broken.

As soon as she reached the top of her tower, she cried out in pain and sorrow, beating the stone walls with her fists. She screamed that she hated her, hated her and would kill her. Take Kalina An from her rack on the wall and blow her treacherous mother and Gabriel straight to Hell.

She sobbed and fell to her low velvet couch. She lay limp and sobbing. After fifteen minutes or so, she'd cried herself out and calmed down. She put Pantera on the LP player and sat breathing deeply and thinking for a long time. She couldn't tell her father, that was plain. His feelings would be hurt, his pride damaged and the resulting row would be the end of the family. Nor could she let her mother know she knew for fear she would apologise and Mary didn't want an apology. She much preferred to stay angry so she decided to keep her mouth shut. She wouldn't even tell Gabriel. He might tell her mother she knew or worse, he might apologise himself. She was equally as angry at him.

She would send him away personally, say he didn't please her or she'd learned all she could from him and wanted to study alone now. Perhaps if Gabriel left, things could go back to the way they used to be. Even in her furious wishful thinking she knew that was untrue. Things could never be the same again.

The next day she spoke with her father as he worked in his library, still reading the same old book as before, she noted. She told him in a casual, even tone that she had found Gabriel's tutelage immensely helpful but was done with it and wanted to study on her own from now on until college. To her satisfaction, he approved and relayed the message to her mother and Gabriel himself which she was grateful for. Gabriel took it well and arranged to leave the next week. Her mother was crestfallen but covered it up well and said with a genuine smile that it was whatever made Mary happy that was important.

Mary felt dreadful when Gabriel left. She stood in the little tower room and watched his car speed off along the drive keeping both eyes fixed on it like a target until it was out of sight. Then she wrathfully snatched Kalina An from it's place on the wall and stormed down to the firing range where she fired rounds and rounds of ammunition crying at his betrayal, at her father always being right, at her mother's disloyalty, at her own stupidity and gullibility. She felt sick realising she'd been used to keep her father out of the way while they met together in secret. For three years this had been going on. Had Gabriel stayed there to teach her at all?

By evening, she'd calmed down enough to sit for the normal family dinner. Her father sent his apologies but said he was "too busy" to eat with them. She sat opposite her mother and they ate in silence trying to act normally. It failed. As soon as the meal was over, both rose without a word and went their separate ways.

For the next year, Mary still studied though erratically, spending whole days at the firing range and studying long into the night. She was alone a lot more often and couldn't bear to hear her mother's beautiful playing. It brought out in her such an anger.

She listened to her LP's alone, Pantera, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, The Cult...these were her companions for that painful year. She used her laptop to order more music and clothes from outside. She rebelled against her austere father and conventional mother and bought short skirts, high boots, jewellery with spikes and chains. She practised obsessively with her guns and all but gave up on her Sunday sessions in the library with her father. He barely emerged from there any more; he even slept on the couch in the library some nights. Her mother made several attempts to reunite them all and made many heartfelt pleas to them to abandon their pursuits every evening just for an hour for their traditional dinner and fireside talk but to no avail.

In Mary's 18th year she was preparing to leave. She no longer wanted to go to college; she now wanted to skip straight to demon hunting and freelance mercenary work. She'd travel alone for a while until she found a nice demon-infested city and then settle there and make her living doing what she did best. Perhaps if she made enough money she could even go into experimental arms manufacture. That would be a dream come true. She was nervous about telling her parents her plans but found her mother anyway very encouraging. With a genuine smile, she said that if she was younger and braver it would be her dream as well. They sat together in the parlour by the cold daytime fireplace for half an hour or so in a comfortable silence, the first real time they'd connected since Mary's disastrous 16th birthday.

Her father gave her five minutes of his reasonably undivided attention which was something of a record recently. She explained her plans and an odd look came over his face. He seemed conflicted, drawn, a vein tugged involuntarily under his eye making his whole eye flutter. He gave her a weak smile and stood up to embrace her awkwardly. His ribs protruded and his skin was sallow. His hair had all but fallen out and there was little light in his mismatched eyes. He held her all the same.

"Mary. My Mary. Good luck, my dear, in whatever you do. I'm glad you are escaping here before..." here he paused, his voice faltering. Mary had smiled brightly but a little concerned.

"Before what, father?" she'd asked trying to keep her tone light and teasing.

His face turned suddenly mean and he rounded on her practically snarling;

"You dare ask? You, child, upon whom I bestowed all my knowledge, distilling it into you slowly over time, praying that somehow it would alchemise with your natural talent and make you into something great? I waste my time. You, my child, who leave me now to become a mere travelling thug like that worthless thief Loggia. Curse on you. Leave me!"

His last words were so loud Mary was scared right out of his library. She ran a little way down the hall before calming enough to assure herself it was lack of sleep and insecurity about her leaving that were making him irritable. She decided to leave it a few weeks before confronting him about it again and in the mean time began looking around on the Internet for a car. Actually choosing and purchasing one would involve going into the nearest major town fifty miles away which she hadn't done for over three years and could hardly remember.

Nonetheless, she set out the next day in her mother's Jaguar, alone and for the first time really free. She rolled down the top of the car despite the light rain and pumped Iron Maiden's Wildest Dreams through the stereo. She smiled to herself and drummed her fingers on the wheel in time with the music, happy and content and totally alone.

The drive was long but seemed to take no time at all, the mountains gave way to woods then fields and finally small towns and suburbs. The city was busy and crowded and more full of life than anything Mary had ever seen. It was loud and dirty and massive. She drove straight into it looking around at everything with slightly fearful awe. It was sharper than she remembered. Skyscrapers reached up twenty and thirty stories, cars zipped past along the freeway bypass. Hundreds of thousands of people walked the streets and no two were exactly the same. She was dazzled.

On her way to find the car, she saw a young man swerving through the streets at a semi-illegal pace on a slightly beat up Vincent Black Shadow, the greatest bike of the age in Mary's opinion. She watched spellbound as the mans knee almost scraped the road on a corner, heard his short laugh as it didn't and then went on to take the next corner in exactly the same fashion. She stood staring until he was out of sight. And suddenly she didn't want a car anymore. She tracked down a motorcycle dealer and bought herself a red Warrior. She had to pay almost twice the normal price to convince the dealer to sell it to her since she didn't have a license but it was, in her view, worth it. She had it delivered home and drove back triumphant to tell her parents. She neglected even to buy a helmet and knee pads but it just didn't matter.

She had her first wings to fly, so to speak.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hi everyone, i've been told that last chapter was pretty sad and i guess it is. And so you know now, this one's sadder still. It's the death of hermother and flight ofher father combined with the very end of Mary's chance for a semi-normal life. Ijust couldn't find a way to put a positive spin on it. So i didn't. It's tragic. And i think iuse the word 'blood' more times on those last few paragraphs than Edgar Allen Poe uses the word 'despair' in his collected works. Perhaps not.Point remains, there's lots of blood. **

**Fearing Keep Me In The Shadows' judgement (review) it's a nice long chapter posted quite early and also the penultimate one. After this there's only one chapter before theend. Lucia, i'll be right here if you cry (come to think ofit that applies to all)and i have gingerbread men. Thanks also to Oscarinaff. Thank you all, enjoy the ride. Skaye.**

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When she arrived home, jubilant, she told her mother who did her best to share her excitement despite the fact that she honestly couldn't see the appeal in a glorified moped. Her father had locked the door to his library and didn't respond when she knocked and yelled the news through to him. She was worried but too excited to make a big deal of it. She went out to practise with her guns; she was making real progress with her control of the semi-autos. She hit the center of the target she was aiming for 93 percent of the time. She made a mental note to experiment with moving targets some time.

The bike arrived two days later, assembled, unpacked and ready to ride. If only she knew how. It would have been a simple matter to hire a teacher from town for a week or so but that seemed to her like an admission of defeat. She was determined to learn this thing on her own. She sat in the dark leather seat and experimented with each control, discovering the ignition a very uncomfortable two minutes before she found the brake. The controls were rudimentary, accelerator, brake, gears and indicators just like a car. Steering was something totally different, leaning in the direction she wanted to go. It took a lot of guts and a lot of practice but she stuck at it, driving the bike all day for three weeks along the empty concrete roads and dirt trails around the house. She crashed quite badly once and had to rest for a couple of days and she had plenty of small falls that made her limbs bruise and ache. It was difficult and dangerous without protective gear but she adored the danger of it almost as much as the sheer thrill of speed and momentum.

Within a month she was driving it like a professional and went once again into town to take her test and get a license. She drove the bike all the way home without a single fall and still helmet-less. There were few if any police on those mountain roads so she was never once stopped. She arrived home under the weight of odd indigo storm clouds which were beginning to build up around the mountain. The air was oppressive and seemed to crackle around the house. She displayed her license proudly to her mother who was overjoyed and presented her with a helmet. They laughed together and then sat down to dinner. They knew without even asking that her father was "too busy" to join them although her mother was plainly worried over it. She muttered over and over again that he just "wasn't himself". They hadn't seen him in over a week and he never left the library now.

The heavy air with its dense clouds stayed over the house all through the next day and the next. They were still there a week later on Mary's 19th birthday which her father forgot about. Her mother compensated to the best of her ability cooking Mary a cake herself and giving her lovely presents, a new pair of bright red boots, a cell phone, a pretty little pair of diamond earrings, a stack of new LP's, a long leather coat, even a pair of small handguns of a fine European make. She couldn't help but be delighted with her presents although she would have liked to see her father, he had been her guide and guardian her entire life and now as she was preparing to leave he wouldn't even see her.

The rain started that night, great heavy drops of it that lashed vengefully against the large windows of the house. The wind picked up and swept along the roof lifting tiles that had sat there for centuries and hurling them to the ground. Under the heavy velvet counterpane of her bed, Mary clutched her new handguns for security and turned her music up to drown out the din. She didn't hear the commotion from the library, books flying and thudding against the walls carried by invisible currents of power that swirled around her father.

She fell asleep just past midnight and therefore didn't notice that her music stopped abruptly as the power in the house cut out. The noises in the library suddenly went dead and for an entire three minutes, there was perfect silence in the house. The storm seemed to be holding its breath. Waiting. Lightning flared above the house in great vivid green forks and there was such a boom of thunder Mary was thrown off her bed deafened for a few minutes. She screamed silently and, grabbing her guns, she ran out of her room and down towards the library. The door was ajar and the inside was a bomb-site.

Hardly a single book remained on its shelf and very few were still intact. It hit her like a punch in the stomach. She leaned against the wall for a second, staring with her mouth wide at the barely-recognisable chaos. Then as her hearing returned with an unpleasant ringing in her ears, she walked on through the house which had gone still again. Her mother was not in her room and her father was nowhere to be seen. She realised with a sudden cold shock that her father might have been in the library when that happened to it. She ran back there immediately and called out hysterically for him. She waded into the mess of pages and splinters and felt around for him. She called and called digging through the mangled remains of the books she'd known so well. She established after fifteen minutes searching that he wasn't in there and the relief brought with it a sudden exhaustion. She picked her way out of the stricken library and continued her search of the house. The power was still down so she lit an old gas lantern and walked on carefully, gun raised to shoulder level, afraid of what she might see.

The irregular light of the lantern caught something shining wetly in the middle of the cavernous foyer at the entrance of the house. Mary doubled back and looked closer. The doors were open and the light rain still drifted in and there in the middle it the tiled floor surrounded by a terrible pool of blood lay her mother. Mary gasped and choked then ran down the stairs, stumbling on the thick carpet. She dashed to her mother's side and reached for her through the awful blood. Her voice wouldn't work and she shook violently. Her mother was limp and her skin in the lamplight was the colour of wax between the splashes of deep red. She opened her eyes faintly and they flickered to Mary holding her and to the front of her dress which was saturated in blood from the cut in her torso which seeped it still. She opened her mouth to speak and more blood ran out. Mary felt for her pulse; slowing, then slowing, then dead. A dead two minutes of stillness during which neither Mary's heart nor her mothers seemed to beat at all. Her thoughts were in chaos. Foolish to even attempt resuscitation. An ambulance would take hours to get here and it was too obscure for helicopters. The blood soaked through her thin nightdress and clung to her fingers making her head swim. She felt sick and strange, her head was filled with a high buzzing that drowned out all thoughts. The words dead, dead, dead played though her head like a broken record but she couldn't even think what that meant anymore. She longed for her father. Where was he? Where in hell was he? Her mother's voice roused her suddenly and she jumped. The lips were moving and the weak voice stuttered but the body was dead. The skin was already beginning to cool in the cold foyer. The voice found strength and the words became audible. Mary was unable to move.

"He is fled, Mary, the snake has slithered back to his master's side but the master must be vigilant lest he be devoured too. The princes will clash at the peak of the diabolical mountain and the battle will shake the Earth. The Fool shall make fools of them all and they will all help to raise the stairway to the sky from the tunnel to the Pit. Follow the ley lines to the centre of the web where the spider waits. Fly from your fear and your doubt and never let them consume you. Princess. Priestess. Take up your sword and show the fallen Hell."

The voice faded and the body lay still again. Mary sat still for what seemed hours, the words burned into her brain. Then her hands shook themselves and her whole body followed. She shook until her teeth chattered. Once it had subsided, she got to her feet and walked slowly and stiffly to her bathroom. She turned on the shower, cold water only at this time of night, and washed the blood from herself. Her long hair was hopelessly clotted with it and rather than tease the knots out of it, she simply took up a pair of scissors and cut it short. It fell away in dark dead strands that lay inert like feathers on the bathroom floor. She stared at themfor a minutewondering dumbly what they were.

She dressed in her new boots, skirt, shorts, fingerless biking gloves and a blue blouse then threw a few supplies, her laptop, cell phone and purse into a backpack before strapping on as many of her guns as she could comfortably carry, a great deal of ammunition and Kalina An. She sat down on her bed, packed and ready to go and without even noticing when it started, she was crying. Tears ran inevitably down her face and she sobbed painfully. She called out for her mother and father; she was alone in this place, her house. The body of her mother still lay going cold in the foyer; her father was gone, "back to his master" apparently. Without her even asking it to, her brain put two and two together. Father. Master. Those demon books, his odd behaviour, his sudden vanishing, her moth... He killed her. He killed her.

She thought further, the ley lines. Her mother had mentioned the ley lines. She knew about them, Gabriel had told her about these secret natural channels of energy that crisscrossed the whole surface of the Earth and he'd taught her how to see them. She scrambled about her parent's room for a roadmap of the whole country and from the ruins of the library; she found a large sheet of acetate. Transparent plastic paper her father used for making notes on ancient documents without actually touching them. She stuck it flat over the unfolded map then took up a purple marker. She breathed deeply and reached into the recesses of her mind trying to see the whole world as it was without cities or roads or bridges. She focused on her country alone and searched around for the very centre of the current web. She focused and saw and began to draw. She drew the shimmering lines on the acetate as she saw them. She lifted the marker, drew back her mind like a net and opened her eyes. The acetate over the map was covered in intricate purple lines exactly like a web. They all converged directly over a city almost a thousand miles to her South South East. That was her destination. She grabbed up the covered map and put it in her backpack.

She strode back downstairs through the foyer once more and looked down at her mother's still form in the vast glittering pool of blood. Mary left the lantern by her because it seemed like the thing to do and then walked out the front door. She took her motorcycle, revved the engine and set off without a backward glance. She refused to stop, refused to cry, any obstruction to her vision might cause her to crash. She couldn't afford to crash, no time to die. The dark flew past. She thought only two things; her mother was dead and her father, or whatever he was now, was responsible. Mother. Father. Someone had to bleed for this.


	5. Chapter 5

**Ok, to set the record straight, I'm not dead. My computer was for a while which is virtually the same thing (awful puns, just awful). But my time offline has not been spent doing nothing. Using that old-fashioned method of pen and paper (they do still exist!) I began to plan and write out my new story, standalone sequel to The Rahovart Saga called The Lucifer Saga which features Dante and Lucia again as well as Lady, Vergil and a brief cameo from Trish. It's got little to do with this story which is, incidentally, on it's final chapter but, hey, it's my space so I thought I'd advertise.**

**Speaking thus, my customary and ever grateful thanks to the now renamed Nxy, Lucia, Lani Lenore and newcomers Veronica and The Tyrant Hamster. It wouldn't have been completed at all without this great response. Actually now you come to mention hamsters, i used to have two Russians, adorable little white things until one ate the other...**

**Back to the point and back to the story, always, Skaye.**

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A man's voice was talking to her, had been for a few minutes now. She looked up into the bright lights of the small bar and saw a short but kind-looking man in a greasy apron looking down at her concerned.

"You all right, honey?" he asked, lifting the plate of cold pizza from in front of her. "I told you quite a few times already it's closing time and I know you speak English 'cos you ordered this meal from Dan over there. Do you want me to call someone to pick you up? A cab or something?"

Mary shot back to where she was and shook her head;

"I have my bike outside. I'm, uh, sorry. It's been a long trip."

The man smiled and handed her a flat cardboard box which was faintly warm at the bottom.

"One for the road. Get some sleep, honey, you look exhausted."

Mary's turn to smile. She took the box from him and thanked him before leaving the bar and heading back to her motel room checking on her precious bike en route. Safe and sound. She stretched out on the narrow creaky bed and opened the box. Another pizza, this one warm. She realized as soon as she saw it that she was starving and bolted the whole thing, blessing the bar man for his thoughtfulness. When she was finished, she lay out on her back and began to think again. Tomorrow she'd reach the city. Tomorrow she'd find out what all of this was about. Tomorrow she'd find her mother's murderer and, if possible, save her father from the same fate. Then they could go home and, who knows? Maybe start to live again.

She switched off the light and closed her eyes, loving the sudden dark and the rest. She folded her hands around her guns which she'd earlier removed from her backpack and laid on the bed. Big day for both of us tomorrow, she thought. She'd never shot to kill before but knew without a trace of doubt that she'd kill to avenge her mother a thousand times over and then twice as much again for her father. She fell asleep thinking of them. Her family, her life was gone now.

She woke the next day later than she meant to but washed, ate and got moving quickly. She thought over the words her mother's body had spoken and wondered if she was crazy. Perhaps the shock of her mother's death had driven her mad and none of that prediction stuff really hapened at all. It was tempting to think but the message rang too clear in her head while she tried to make a meaning fit. There were many different possible interpretations to a message like that and none made any more sense than the others. Tunnels, stairways and mountains. Princes, princesses and priestesses. Snakes, masters and fools. Reminded her of the Black Sabbath lyrics she used to listen to. Didn't make a bit of sense though. Perhaps it would make more sense when she arrived.

Just approaching the city through the lunchtime traffic, she felt the ground shake and that odd charged feeling she recognised with dread filled the air. She pulled over, loaded her guns and armed herself. The ground shook more violently and there was a sudden rush of people fleeing the city in panic. She hit the road once more conscious that she was hte only person driving down the inward lane of the freeway. Everyone else was trying to get as far away from whatever it was as possible. Maybe they were the smart ones.As she accelerated over the bridge into the city proper, shesaw the reason for the tremors; a colossal tower protruding from seemingly a random set of city blocks.

The monstrous thing had ploughed up the buildings and cracked the ground for miles, it rocketed up into the clouds and dripped shattered masonry. She revved her bike, clasping her guns for courage and drove towards it stopping only when she couldn't takethe bike any further. She felt for the energy in the air and smiled in grim and apprehensive satisfaction.

"So," she said to no-one but herself, "I've found it."

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**And there it ends.**


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